08 August 2007

Superheroes on Screen - Retrospective 1995

Its been a while since the last (1996) retrospective and sorry to say, 1995 wasn't really worth the wait. In all it was a pretty unremarkable year.

1995__________________

At the time, it seemed Joel Schumacher had injected new life into the Batman franchise. Oh how wrong we were. Yet the seeds of disaster were clear as day. Tommy Lee Jones' Two Face and Jim Carrey's Riddler were both camped out clowns. The movie had lots of neon, an overstuffed character list, and a hip soundtrack. Batman and Robin was all but inevitable. Still, this film was a warmly received correction from the overly dark and creepy Batman Returns. This Val Kilmer helmed Batman movie went on to earn $184 million.

Judge Dredd cost $90 million to make and earned $35 mil. The movie also earned Sly Stalone a nomination for the Raspberry award for worst actor. This British character is a law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner. I missed this one, but I don't much regret it.

Tank Girl based on another British comic made $4 million and by the looks of the poster alone, it didn't deserve that much.

In all, 1995 was a good year to save your money rather than seeing some manic and campy comic adaptations.